What started out as an email enquiry to me has ended in the start of my first book. I’m really excited to announce I will be writing a book on BuddyPress theme development. It’s a really cool time and apt to be writing a book on BuddyPress themes. So, how did this all come about?

How it started

The email came to me while I was away at BuddyCamp in Miami. It was an enquiry asking if I’d be interested in writing a book on BuddyPress theme development. In the email they’d done their research and also they gave a link to my WordCamp NYC talk as an example of this. This is something to note, WordCamp’s matter and speaking does lots for the speaker and those listening – you do get what you put in with open source. Whilst it shouldn’t be your goal in getting involved (karma doesn’t work when you intend), you don’t know where a WordCamp talk or a contribution will take you.

I had a bit of ‘email to and fro’ working out terms that suited all of us and a way this book could happen. I unsurprisingly had some very set ideas over the format of such a book. Over my time in Miami I was also going through writing the outline for this book as there was a deadline for that I’d be missing otherwise – it was quite a juggle. It was also kind of cool to be at BuddyCamp whilst this was all going on. In the end, I’m glad I did it as I’m now able to make this exciting announcment.

The book

The book will be a 100 (ish) page step-by-step tutorial approach one and the smaller format should work well as a quicker read. It’s aimed at being a ‘small taste’ but enough to get you going, in the know and hopefully hooked on BuddyPress. The target audience is going to be from developers, designers through to casual interest – it’s a wide aim. I hope to cover a range of things including the current state of themes, default options and installing, going beyond default, building and beyond the look into the dev side. It’s going to be a packed 100 pages!

I have no release date but I imagine it will be late Summer / Autumn. When I know more I will announce it. I am spending the next few months writing this starting in May. It will be with Packt Publishing.

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Pretty much every time someone asks me ‘what do you do’ it’s a 50/50 bet as to if my response is met with a puzzled expression. People get the designer bit but the community bit seems to send minds to town planning or wandering if I’m just making things up. I’ve decided to write this in a response to why I put those 2 words together for what I do.

Designer just doesn’t cut it as a label

A while ago I felt that just saying I’m a designer simply didn’t work for me. Sure, I am a designer but that is the top of a rather large iceberg that is what I do. That said, I thought about how other designers deal with this. My mind quickly went to the descriptions like ‘furniture designer’ or ‘fashion designer’. Our online version of this was ‘web designer’ but again that fails to hit the mark. The web is huge now, a vast planet where you can do any range of types of sites. In this vast expanse that is now the ‘web’ calling yourself a ‘web designer’ just doesn’t seem to fit.

I focus on creating communities. It’s quite literally what aside from the odd request from a friend what I work on. I came to the realisation a while ago that designing communities is where my heart lies. I design best when faced with communities. Above that though, it’s what I am happiest doing, and isn’t that reason enough.

Designer second

Whilst I do design, for me putting what I design before that is significant. Design as a word comes with a ton of visual baggage. The mind hops to the visual without maybe thinking so much about the ‘what creating’. I often explain community design as being for designers that get a kick out of psychology more than making things pretty. That’s quite a broad stroke but there’s reason behind that probably fitting for another article, but the point stands.

The community is probably more important than designer bit. Yes, I am a designer and that’s part of my dna to be honest I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. My love, my passion is with communities and what I can design for them. It feels right being community first in my label.

The other candidates

On my quest for a job title, I passed on many other labels. BuddyPress designer was one of my first attempts. I stuck with that for a few months but it just didn’t seem to feel right. Sure, I use BuddyPress for most of the work I do. But that leads me to have to explain BuddyPress before I even get to the ‘what I do’. It seemed to place a hurdle. I also don’t always use BuddyPress, a few of my jobs are on a more consulting basis when the structure is already done. Whilst this is rare, it is something that can happen.

Maybe social network designer? Considering my view that you should build communities not social networks (a discussion for another blog post) this was straight out the door with a kick in the behind.

I tried on many labels over the time I was thinking about this. None felt right until I tried community designer. From the start this just seemed to say it. It had designer second, it simply said what I designed. It fitted from the start. I was aware of other uses of the words community design such as the EU, but despite this it didn’t feel like ‘no go’ label.

A little mission

In saying I’m a community designer I never intended it to be a bit of a mission to get it recognised, however as time has gone on it’s becoming aware to me that many don’t even think of it as a possible to focus on. I’m very keen on designers discovering what fits them and focusing on that. I don’t in saying this think I’m the only designer focusing on communities. I would though, be over the moon if more designers chose community design.

This ‘mission’ to some extent applies to other areas online. As designers we use that term as a blanket swamping any website. I think that can be dangerous to do. As the platform grows, matures and becomes more complex; each type will require different skills as a designer. I don’t see this as bad or good, just evolution.

A long explanation for a short summary about what I do

It’s not a short explanation but this is why I call myself a community designer. It’s not out of ego, it’s out of thought, out of a passion for what I design. I call it like someone would say they are a car designer, a make-up designer. In short, I call myself a community designer because I am.

The post What is a community designer? appeared first on Diary of a website.

Note: This is in part a response to ModemLooper’s post ‘Responsive WordPress themes are back assward’ and also a collection of my thoughts on the way to approach sites across devices.

I think one of the issues as illustrated in articles like ModemLoopers is an easiness to jump to the worst examples and broad stroke a solution. My own thoughts are a more flexible ‘per situation’ solution is the best one. Just like you don’t repeat the same design over and over again – responsive, adaptive… mobile apps all have their place it’s picking from the toolset and using the right one for the case.

Unique Snowflakes.

Before I go on, my thinking has cemented lately against a ‘one size fits all’ approach to pretty much anything. Take themes, yeah sure they kind of work out of the box for a range of cases – but should anyone be doing something that’s ‘kind of’? Those of us making this our profession certainly shouldn’t.

There has been a lot of talk about device independence and to me this is step one and the first thing as a designer you should do. Don’t think in terms of wiggling browser up and down to media query points. Think of it as a fluid mighty morphing site. The focus away from pixels is one I’m keen to keep in sight as in the great A List Apart article ‘Vexing Viewpoints’. After that come the more ponderous considerations of a mobile approach. Even the term mobile is being used by me with caution as doesn’t hit the spot fully either – we can’t assume (the mantra of the device free designer).

Responsive got itself a bad name.

A point against responsive that has happened in the past is the loading everything and kitchen sink. First up, if you are saying this let me introduce to you the ‘Mobile First’ approach. Secondly, if you’re not creating sites that are mobile first … let me introduce a concept to you MOBILE FIRST. Don’t give responsive a bad name, if you are going to do it – do it right.

I would like to add I love responsive. To me it is a movement (and yes I see it as one) which has turned my designer world upside down and raised all our bars. What I do not like is responsive without brains. This is what I think is the cause of much of the stick shaking at responsive. It’s not something you should see as a ‘feature’ either in my book – just do it like you’d bother to test in a range of browsers. Also, don’t charge extra for it. That’s just plain wrong as your costs should adapt with technology not be fixed and have bolt ons every time something should have – you’re not a mobile phone contract.

Templates are just another possible tool.

Modemlooper makes a case for using templating for showing different versions depending on devices. This isn’t a bad approach but it is hidden under the pile of kicking responsive in the head and that doesn’t really help. It does bring up a few issues. One of these being the blur in terms. Responsive can (and should) mean you remove things and move them about – that’s just doing responsive right period. The lines of adaptive and responsive are blurred by their very definitions and even ‘device independent’ doesn’t fully cut it as an explanation.

At the root of what a lot of he says is a matter of education needed to not create lesser but more appropriate experiences on mobile. Heck maybe we need a new technique called ‘Appropriate’ (or maybe we are all going to drown in terms soon). Mobile themes such as the drop and go plugins / themes have for a long time caused a wide range of misinformation over what should be a mobile experience. I would cheerfully click a button and see mobile themes like that vanish as they are brainless. We can do so much better than that as a mobile solution.

Modemlooper’s post does read a bit of a ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water one’ and whilst I do realise this post was written in a rant format it tars all with the same damning brush. This is the other point that really needs to be underlined. Responsive has its place – it did and still does. Brainless responsive (like brainless adaptive, like brainless mobile apps) doesn’t have its place.

The joy of tools we can all play with.

Performance junkies will chew on the ‘what method’ (looking at mobile first and all the best practices not brandishing broad brushes) is best over time and that’s kind of the cool thing with this device un-centric approach. It’s a revolution not just in the design world but the development world also. I don’t know the facts so I’m staying away from that one. My focus is on looking at the tools and seeing which one works from project to project. On using my designer brain and not just blindly applying anything.

Appy Elephant.

The elephant in the room is apps. Responsive has been argued as blindly ignoring apps almost to the point of seeing the world as ideally app free. I don’t think that ever was the case and whilst it has been levied against even me, it never was my thought process either. I love apps but I love (wait for it) apps that have brains… do something different from a responsive site and work for the purpose better than a responsive, adaptive, ‘hamsteraptive’ site (hedging my bets on any new terms there).

I do not believe just because you are on any thingy be it mobile or not you should get an experience just because you’re there. You can’t assume that every site needs the same mobile experience. You also while we’re at it can’t assume ‘ithingies’ are mobile. You can’t force a cookie cutter template onto them either they can’t get out of. You know what excites me in the app world? Apps that work for the mobile device when a site wouldn’t, that do something sites can’t / don’t / won’t. That bring something beyond a browser to the table.

Me?

Where does this leave me as a designer? It leaves me excited that’s what it does. It leaves me with so much to learn, so many new playgrounds and tools to build things with. So many platforms I can create on and build things that make sense for humans. It also leaves me as 2013 approaches dropping one part of the job description I’ve used for so many years. It started last year and I no longer see myself as a web designer. I am just a designer and it’s kind of liberating to realise that. I am just a device free designer.

The post Musings from a device free designer on appropriate tools appeared first on Diary of a website.

A year in talks

I started what I didn’t realise would be a round of speaking in 2012 with my talk at WordPress London Meetup in March. This was followed by being lucky enough to speak at WordCamp Netherlands. I learnt a lot in that talk, which I feel I have taken throughout the year. This was my first non UK WordCamp and a really good one to start with as Utrecht is an amazing place.

As Spring rolled on I got to speak at The Multipack and then as I looked to summer and a chance to revisit America this time to experience New York for the first time and speak at WordCamp NYC. Summer rolled on I got to experience a Scottish summer (remind me to not pack shorts next time) with WordCamp UK in Edinburgh. Whilst doing my own talk was great there the highlight for me was being able to chair the panel on getting involved in WordPress.

I took a bit of downtime over Autumn and ended the year with a final talk as one of the New Faces at Ready to Inspire in Leiden. An honour I can’t still quite believe I got to experience.

Anyone I met this year through WordCamps or other conferences thank you – the pleasure was all mine. I’ve now made a list for all my speaking on my portfolio site and I hope to do more in 2013.

A year in new things

I was lucky enough to be included in WP Realm and also to be one of those involved in the now announced WordPress Europe that will happen in 2013. That’s kind of amazingly exciting to think I’m even part of those great teams, I feel a small cog but so welcome. Thank you to everyone involved in both those projects for letting me be involved.

Another new thing was being able to be part of the team working on Turtleshell which is a suggested UI for the new theme independent BuddyPress. This has been really fun to be part of and I hope to continue to work on this along with increase my contributions to BuddyPress. Status was released and should hopefully soon be on the wordpress.org for download.

Bite the bullet

I guess a big lesson for me this year has been to not wait and debate and just to go for it. It’s not something I find easy putting myself forward (despite what the speaking may suggest). I actually quake inside every talk and don’t feel at ease in large groups. I’m lucky enough to after this year know a few more of the faces in those crowds and you know what… that’s kind of the point. If you put yourself out there a bit, if you do speak to maybe 1 new person – that person instantly becomes not new and someone you can speak to easier.

Sometimes life happens

On a more personal note the second half of the year has been more of a test, namely my husband being unwell this year which has meant he’s now not worked since September and been in and out of hospital. I have found myself a few times over the year breaking my usual fairly split divide between personal and work and started to realise that sometimes you just can’t carry on regardless. Sometimes, you need to take time away and recharge with those you care and just be there. People are more important than pixels.

A thanks

Being part of the WordPress community kind of rocks. For me, I also have to say how much the BuddyPress corner of that community is special and we shouldn’t ever change that. The way we support each other in that small community and WordPress at large – the connections we make. It’s special and we should never loose sight of that. We can do amazing things together.

I’d like to thank those that referred work to me this year, you do make a difference when you refer me. There is also nothing quite like finding out someone thinks you’re good enough to be recommended.

Onward

As for 2013… well I’m already set to speak at WordCamp Norway in January along with go to Naconf. I’d love to step up my contributions to BuddyPress and also to WordPress with an eye on the mobile side as I really want to learn more there. I do have some projects I hope to reveal a bit later on in the year which I’m having to force myself to not speak about now I’m so excited. I’m really looking forward to what the next year will bring.

The post 2012 in a bit of a long nutshell appeared first on Diary of a website.

I set myself a few goals over the Christmas holidays and a one of them was around blogging. For most of this year I’ve blogged far more on other sites than I have here and I even reset the archives with my move last year. I want to change this focus away from my own blogging and bring it back. In order to do so a bit of a format change was needed.

First up, I’ve changed the theme up to a more journal format. As with any designers own site this probably is subject to much pixel change and prodding – but for now I’m tentatively ‘ok’ with the format. There are a few things I’d like to tweak and add over time but I set myself a limit of a day and this is what was the fruits of my labour.

Three types of posts

I have found myself wanting to write 3 types of posts.

1. Short links, videos and ‘sharings’.
2. News updates / things I’m doing.
3. Longer form posts.

The first thing to get changed was my use of Tumblr. I’ve had a tumblr site for a while now and over recent months found it just not as useful to me. I still love to share links and shorter snippets so I felt that bringing that back into WordPress would be good. Espresso Karma will be where now all of that lives. I probably will use this a lot for mobile blogging as want to share my thought snapshots through it along with others content.

I’ve for a while used BuddyPress on my own blog for a few reasons namely the profile (a current victim of the reshape but will be back) and also the status updates. I love them for a simple information shot and will continue to use them from their new home in the sidebar. I’ve got some ideas on extending this a bit later with a more ‘log’ type page.

Longer form now is the main focus of this site and it’s what I hope to bring back with these changes. I’ve done a number of things to simplify the reading and make posts the focus. I also plan to build on this over the next few weeks as I grow into it by writing some posts.

It’s been interesting to see what comes of these changes but I’m already feeling a lot more comfortable in them. So, here’s to more blogging in the coming year in all types.

The post Moving the blogging furniture appeared first on Diary of a website.

First up, an apology over the delay in this post. Like always happens in the pre Christmas client wrap up things got a bit carried away from me so my thanks come after Santa this time. I was lucky enough to attend the Ready to Inspire Conference in Leiden and even luckier to be one of the New Faces.

In the beginning was a ticket purchase

I was always going to attend – well on looking at the line up how could I not? A short plane hop to one of my top countries of all time and I got to be inspired by an amazing speaker list on of all things Craftmanship. The deal was done and my flight booked to The Netherlands. Whilst I waited eagerly though another opportunity came up and that was to speak at the conference. For once, I managed to shut up the little naysayer inside me and took the dive. Email was sent and whilst I was secretly hopeful I couldn’t really believe it would happen. Low and behold though… fast track a bit and there was I writing my talk ‘Designing for Humans not Robots’ for the New Faces day at Read to Inspire.

The entire idea of ‘New Faces’ is simply mind blowingly awesome:

New Faces is all about fresh and talented speakers to step up and present a talk to a large group of attendees for the first time. This day will be exciting for both presenters and attendees. – New Faces

Each ‘New Face’ had a different level of speaking and that was in itself a great thing. I learnt also from the other ‘New Faces’. There is always a lot of talk about how there are few ‘ways in’ to speaking well Inspire Conference with the ‘New Faces’ offers just that.

Then there was some travelling and discovering

On getting to Leiden I discovered another gem of a city – I’m now certain The Netherlands stole all the amazing cities as keep finding these gems! A quiet evening lead to a bit of pacing and note shuffling as I tried to get my brain around the task ahead. I’d just like to say a huge thanks to Robert Eerhart who truly made me feel at ease. From the first show of the room I’d be speaking in through to the event itself – I was made to feel assured and informed at every step. As a ‘New Face’ this is really important.

Then there was food and conversation

The cherry on top was the invite to the New Faces to be part of the speaker dinner. That truly was amazing to experience and thank you to all the speakers for such a warm welcome. I was humbled to even be sitting at the same table as people that have influenced so heavily my career. I’m not always the most forward of people but just being able to listen and get a brief insight into the person not the profile was incredible. A big thank you also goes out to Derek Featherstone for passing on some great points about speaking.

There was some mind blowing

The main conference day did exactly what it said on the tin and inspired with the focus on craftsmanship. The venue was a really impressive one and everyone involved in the conference really did a great job of making it run smoothly. I’d like to say a big thank you to anyone involved as I know it takes many hands to put on such a great event.

A good conference was had by all

The Ready to Inspire Conference itself was an amazing way to wrap up what for me has been an amazing year from speaking through to the events I’ve attended. It was great catching up with some people I’d not seen since WordCamp Netherlands 2012 – which in a nice loop started off my conference 2012. It’s filled me with excitement about what will happen in 2013 and I certainly hope the end of 2013 will see me returning to attend the 2nd Ready to Inspire Conference.

The post A Santa delayed and belated thank you note to the Ready to Inspire Conference appeared first on Diary of a website.

Utrecht just wow

The event was held in Utrecht which I’d not been to. I’d been the rather typical ‘Brit’ up to that point with Amsterdam being my Dutch experience. Utrecht itself is a stunning city and helped by the fact that it was incredibly sunny the entire time we were there.  If you are looking for something a little more than a hotel room and the freedom of a lounge, kitchen but still with the boutique furniture you’d get in a top hotel – I’d recommend it as a place to stay.  You can see my pictures of Utrecht here.

So, what about the WordCamp?

I loved how WordCamp Netherlands even though attended by quite a number was often quite an intimate experience. There was time to talk to most there and get to know some new people and reconnect with others. This really made it a powerful personal experience and something with some real food for thoughts to take home. The event itself was so well organised those doing the organisation really deserve a medal. Heck there was even a literal goodie bag – lego USB drive and stickers by the bucket load equals a win.

BuddyPress activate!

Paul Gibbs has already mentioned in his blog post how many cracking BuddyPress people turned up – it was so cool to have a group of BuddyPress peeps.  I hope to repeat this at WordCamp UK as looks already to be at least 2-3 talks about BuddyPress.  I enjoyed talking to everyone that I did about BuddyPress.  To all the BuddyPress ‘ers I met it was so cool and look forward to seeing the great things done with BuddyPress this year.  You can find the slides from my talk ‘Designing for humans with BuddyPress’ here.

Thoughts into action

There were several themes for me to take back from WordCamp Netherlands.

• Niches are the new black : A common conversation and talk topic was how niches are the way WordPress businesses are going and should be going.
• Don’t undersell yourself or others in your field : Make sure you get paid for the skills you are offering and make sure you don’t shoot the rest of those in your field in foot by costing too low.
• Contribution doesn’t mean egos : Those that roll their sleeves up in WordPress usually are the quiet ones in the community. WordCamps are a chance to get to know those unsung heros of the commits.
• Make connections : Twitter is all well and good but there is something to be said for putting a face to the username and for listening to someone more than 140 characters. We all judge far too much from online interactions that WordCamps are a refreshing chance to put names to the faces and discover some great people.
• Earn and give back in equal measures : We all get so much from being part of WordPress we need to contribute back also. Companies if you are running your business on WordPress why not consider donating employee time? Same goes for freelancers… imagine if every one that made money from WordPress did one ticket a week or 3 support requests a week in the support forums. Or more…

All of these things were wrapped up in the great experience of meeting some truly amazing people. I’m going to hat tip and thank anyone I met there – you all made this Brit feel incredibly welcome. I certainly plan to be back next year.

You can see a mini video impression of WordCamp Netherlands thanks to Karim Osman here.  If you get a chance to go I’d highly recommend it as a WordCamp, a great event, great group of people and great country.

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